


Red's and Blue's - ZERO

by McCrystalKitty



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Epic Friendship, Fluff and Angst, From donut onward those character do not show up till the end lol, M/M, Nightmares, Post-Season/Series 17, Sickfic, Slice of Life, tag will get updated as story progresses
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-01
Updated: 2020-07-08
Packaged: 2021-03-05 03:54:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25018093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/McCrystalKitty/pseuds/McCrystalKitty
Summary: This was my found family, no matter how much we seemed to bicker and fight, we’d always come together. It looks like this week, we’d be surviving through a storm together.‘Oh well, we’ve had worse’-Dick Simmons and his found family are locked up inside due to a torrential storm. What usually is a simple experience can only go crazy with the Reds and Blues. Over the course of merely a few days they get into all kinds of shenanigans, problems and personal growth.
Relationships: Dexter Grif/Dick Simmons, Kaikaina Grif | Sister/Lavernius Tucker
Comments: 8
Kudos: 8





	1. Prologue - One big happy family

**Author's Note:**

> I am @KitCatCandy456 on Twitter and Tumblr, You can ask questions there!

“Alright, Just get some rest and you should be fine.” The dark skinned man pulled his face mask down and looked me in the eyes. The doctor in training wore big square glasses, which complimented his round face with a soft comforting smile to top it off. It was a definite contrast to me hostile looking static expression and much lankier pointed face.    
  
He had pulled my medium length -for a boy at least- Maroon hair back so the mess wouldn’t get in my face anymore. Still I reflexively moved my prosthetic hand to where a band normally was. “I feel better already.” 

_ ‘Return home immediately torrential storms encroaching the city’  _ the background noise of the tv filled the silence between the two. Then was drowned out by the banging of the door. 

“Touchdown!” The sound of Laviernius Tucker’s voice fills the entrance of the Base. He was soaked head to toe with water. “I had to run all the way back here! Damn! It was crazy!” He whips his dreads back and forth to get the water logged in them out. The squeezes a bunch out of his teal hoodie. I always hated how careless he was, and now there was a slipping hazard right at the entrance.

“Is it really that bad? I might not be able to make it back home.” The other person says looking out the window, he was packing his stuff in a small briefcase. 

“Tucker, someone could trip and fall.” Another man with short cut blond hair and baggy looking eyes wandered in, he seemed to have an umbrella and closed it before entering the Base. The man wore a black and yellow striped jacket and skinny jeans. I knew who he was- David Washington, a somewhat serious person, but a good friend. Washington went straight to the Closet down the hall to grab a mop and clean the entrance.

“You shouldn’t keep cleaning up after him you know.” A feminine voice, unmistakably Carolina Church as he knew her followed up behind the two. “It really sucks there is a storm, but at least I was able to get some things before it hit.”

“Like what?” I inquire turning towards her on a couch in the main room. 

“Some parts for the car, Lopez has been waiting for me all day in the garage, stuff to barricade the doors and windows, so we don’t get flooded, and extra snacks.” Of course she got all that, Carolina had always been really thoughtful. Her and I had somewhat developed a brother sister relationship, we got mistaken for it once or twice, with how similar in looks there were. Although it was really in the relationship they developed that made it like that. Carolina was strong willed and a good listener, which complimented his somewhat cowardly and stubborn personality. 

Tucker takes some of the stuff from her and places it on the kitchen table as she walks into her room down the hall to get changed. I watched a few minutes of shuffling around the Base before someone else entered. 

“RAIN! WOW, I'M ALL WET IN EVERY ORIFICE~” another higher pitched feminie voice sings songs as she enters. She wears a bright yellow tank top that is tight around her plump body. Her long brown and kinky hair is now stringy and soaking around her shoulders. Kaikaina Grif was her name, and she always was an energetic handful. 

“Yeah-, wait what?” a taller similar looking man, that I know as her older brother (and my best friend) Dexter enters behind her. The two don’t say much more as they quickly head into their room to change. 

“Did he already run off! Grrr….” another slightly shorter, and older asian gruff looking man stomps in with an umbrella over his head. “Why did those darn cars havfta give out. Grif and his crazy driving, or WASHINGTON always taking the car everywhere!” He closes the umbrella and shakes it in the air. That was Sarge, I knew him from way back, when I used to be a soldier. That man was somewhat off his rocker now, but he was still like a father figure to me. 

“I liked the walk, the rain is blue, which is my favorite color.” A softer voice provides a stark contrast to Sarge’s. Michael J. Caboose . He was a tall and big guy, with black scraggly hair and a bit of a scruffy chin. He wore a light blue raincoat with similarly colored boots. Simmons liked Caboose, to an extent. He had a few mental challenges but he treated everyone well and mostly everyone liked him back. 

I knew that was about the usual suspects of people in this Base. There was one more guy Franklin Delano Donut, who used to live here but left a few years ago to pursue his dream of traveling. I missed the guy, but felt more at peace knowing he was happy, plus, he was one to constantly keep us all updated on where he was.

This was my found family, no matter how much we seemed to bicker and fight, we’d always come together. It looks like this week, we’d be surviving through a storm together. 

  
  


_ - _

THUNK. 

The sound of a hammer hitting a board jolted me out of a trance of watching mindless television. Sarge and Carolina seem to be boarding up one of the only two windows we have in the base. 

“The storms are getten’ worse. Flood risk.” Sarge says, noticing me staring them down. 

“Tucker and Wash are getting the door plugged up and Lopez is dealing with the garage area.” Carolina holds up the boards as sarge rhythmically nails them in. 

  
“And the roof we got the grifs putting up a tarp.” Sarge finishes for her. The thuds of someone running down the hall made me turn my back again, to see Grif and his Sister - now in more casual wear- slightly wet and wiping off excess water. 

“Godammit Grif, I have to mop that now.” 

“Oh boo hoo, considering you haven’t done jack shit since you got barley fever.” 

“I COULD’VE HAD SOMETHING REAL BAD YOU NEVER KNOW.” my voice jumps a few octaves in defense of myself. 

“Oh yeah, which is why you cant even risk doing a tiny bit of barricading.” Grif folds his arms and smirks while Kaikaina wanders off down another hallway. 

“Well then you must have come down with the orange plague considering you never do anything ‘round here either…” Sarge mumbles. 

“Anyways The tarp is up,no rain is going to come from the top of the base. I'm going to sleep.” Grif wanders off. 

“It’s two- ...have a nice rest.” Carolina starts and stops herself. Now finished with the window boarding she puts away the hazardous materials. Sarge goes to check on Tucker and Washington. 

“Carolina, why do I have a feeling this is about to be one of the worst weeks  _ ever _ ?” 

“Oh well, we’ve had worse.” She singsongs taking all the supplies back to the garage. 


	2. Chapter 2

It was raining- obviously. Normally Richard Simmons would enjoy the rain, but the torrential storms of the Iris moon made it hard to relax on a rainy day. He coughed into his arms while leaning back on the couch in the main room of the Base staring down the flatscreen tv. 

For whatever reason the entire Base had gotten colder, most likely due to the storm. Today he decided to wear a deep red sweater that covers his neck to beat the chilling temperature. Simmons rubs his eye attempting to avoid pushing his gold lined glasses off his face and refocuses on the newscaster woman on the tv. 

Frank “Doc” Dufrense sat next to him, nibbling on a stick of hard candy while reading an advanced biology book. The man wore matching purple pajamas as he wrote down notes in a separate paper, his dark skin illuminated in the light of the tv as he repeatedly had to push his square glasses up on his face. In the past few years he had gotten more serious about being a real doctor and was doubling down on the work he needed to achieve his goal. Though Simmons couldn’t help but grind his teeth every time that Doc began to ramble on about something he couldn’t care less about. 

“Did you know that Lymphocytes are white cells that are crucial to our immune system?” He starts talking over the television. Simmons took a deep breath in as he prepared himself for a long conversation. 

“Hey Doc, did you know that no one likes you and you don’t fit in.” Dexter Grif’s voice cuts into the room before Simmons could even manage a false interest. This allows him to relax back into the sofa as he can just mindlessly watch the television again. Grif collapses into the right side of the sofa. Wearing a large orange pajama shirt but with light red boxers on only, showing off his hairy tanned, stout legs and other ‘parts’. In his arms he carried a large bowl filled with cheese puffs that Simmons just knew was going to get orange dust everywhere.

“What? People like me, I fit in.” Doc stammers to his own defense holding the book up to his exposed face. Simmon examined it for far too long again taking in the tiny details. His friend always made interesting and seemingly exaggerated facial expressions. 

_ ‘If you are in the Chorus Precinct of this sector of the galaxy a forewarning’ _ The sound of the woman on the news pulled him out of his trance. _ ‘There is a virus spreading around the planets, if you or someone you know catches it, the WHO has advised to quarantine the person immediately’  _

She looks serious while adjusting her holographic screen. _ ‘They will be stopping by each neighborhood in this quadrant over the next 2 weeks to administer a cure and stay safe until then.’  _

“Oh my goodness, a virus! We need to clean the base right now.” Doc stood up running to the closet to get cleaning supplies. 

_ ‘Symptoms inc-’  _ Grif clicks the tv remote and changes it to a kids cartoon channel. A smug grin crawling on his face as he leans back into the chair with a bowl of cheese puffs. 

“Hey what the- I was watching that.” Simmons growls turning to the heavier man. 

“Ya snooze ya loose, besides, you’ve been watching it all day, I did your paperwork and scheduled my tv time!” He pulls out a form that shows a list of over complicated preambulatory clauses and at the bottom 2:30 pm written with Grif and Simmons signatures on the bottom.

“Ugh, fine, I'm not watching this with you get Caboose or something.” Simmons walks off and looks out the window where the rain was just pounding down outdoors. A breeze of cold wind comes out through the cracks and Simmons sneezes. “We need to fix this window so someone is going to catch a cold.” He says to no one in particular. 

Wandering down the hallway looks left and right at the rooms. There were only six rooms and three on each side. Washington and Tuckers being the first on the left, had a do not disturb sign on it which Simmons knew meant nothing but still made him cringe. Delano and Caboose’s - well Doc and Caboose’s now (Delano was still out traveling) rooms door had flowery shapes carved into it. Kaikaina Grif’s room (which used to be his) door was wide open, it smelled lightly of weed and she was out cold on her bed. On the other side he saw his and Grif's room, which was recently cleaned by Carolina of all people but he still stood away because Grif’s sweat still permeated the sheets. Finally at the very end he could hear Sarge whistling from behind the door, he was probably cleaning his gun, and Carolina had a whiteboard sign that permanently had  _ ‘where am I?’ _ written at the top, and  _ ‘In the garage’ _ filled in at the time. 

“So Carolina, and probably Lopez are in the garage, Sarge, Sister, Washington and Tucker are in their rooms busy, Grif, Doc and Caboose are in the living room indulging in some stupid childrens programming….” he sighed. “Nothing for an intellectual to do today.” He wandered back into the main room, ignoring Doc’s frantic cleaning of the walls and tables. Moving over to the kitchen part of the room he sees a shelf where medical books were laid out in order. ‘Maybe this will be interesting, it doesn’t hurt to know’

He sits and reads a little bit about arms amputation.  _ ‘Interesting’  _ He thinks while flipping through the pages. The book was dusty which caused Simmons to cough a little, as well as questions how deep Doc’s dedication to learning actually went if he hadn’t read it yet, which kept his mind wandering again. 

“dang.” he puts the book down. The noise in the main room dialed down as the three people began to focus on the tv show more. As the rain falls it thumps methonctially giving a slow rhythm to the quiet. 

“You look kinda sad.” Caboose had manifested behind Simmons somehow. 

“Uhh, where did you...no I'm not sad, just bored. Rainy day nothing to do.” he runs his hand through his dark red hair and chuckles. 

“You know, when I'm bored, Tucker tells me to go to bed, or play a game, and I think playing a game is much more fun so we should play a game Simmons!” Caboose’s grin grows. Simmons tensed at the idea of doing anything with the stupider one, but he guessed one game wouldn’t hurt. 

“DOC!” Caboose shouts far too loud for the room size. 

“We should play… night at the museum!” 

“What the hell is night at the museum?” Grif leans his head back to look at Caboose. 

“I know I know!” Doc bounces a little. “We stand in a circle, one person is in the middle. We turn the lights off and move towards the person. Then the lights go back on and we have to freeze, if you move when the lights are on then you are out! If the person in the middle gets tagged they swap with their tagger.” Doc explains the game to Grif and Simmons who both make an awkward face.

“You are all way too old for that.” Grif chimes in, then shovels cheese puffs into his mouth. And crosses his legs on the couch. Of course Simmons agreed with his friend, but does not miss an opportunity to jab at him. 

“Says the man watching Ben 10,000.” Simmons snaps back. 

“It’s a good show! Don’t diss on me for having a guilty pleasure!” Grif smiles and licks the dust of his meaty fingers before turning up the tv volume. 

“Ew.” Simmons gags a little and makes a mental note to clean that tv remote. 

Suddenly the lights go off in the main room, only the tv illuminating the area. Simmons starts to panic before they flick back on and he sees a smiling Caboose at the light switch. 

“Ah! You moved Simmons! You are out.”

“No you are not it, we aren-!” Simmons' voice cracks. As the lights turn out again. He growls and stumbles over to the light switch. Before he can turn it on there is a loud crash, and as he flicks the switch again he sees that Caboose has run into the dining table and knocked it over. The bigger man remained still as a statute as the lankier person crossed his arms in annoyance. 

Grif turned up the television louder. “Keep the lights on PLEASE.” He says not paying any mind to the crash. Simmons rolls his eyes and looks over to see Doc also frozen as the lights are on. 

“Ah!” Caboose gasps, and falls over. “I couldn’t hold my breath any longer.”

“I win!” Doc shouts. 

“What? No first of all we aren’t playing, second you didn’t need to hold your breath, third, that’s not how the game even works.” 

“Doc you are the WINNER as the grand prize, you can take all of Simmons candy.” he pulls out a bag from a hidden compartment that Simmons painstakingly made two years ago to avoid theft. 

“WHAT?!” the man shrieked. He had bought the expensive luxray candies online in secret, he thought the place was secure enough to keep them away from their hands.

“Who hoo!” Doc took the bag from Caboose.

“Candy did someone say candy?” Grif had shuffled over to the conversation. Sticking his hand in the bag before the Doc can react. 

The maroon haired man twitched his fingers in frustration. Instead of lashing out at the scene he just untensed in defeat. “I think i'm gonna take Tucker's advice and hit the hay early.” he swiveled towards the hallway and waved his hand in the air. “Goodbye.” 

“Gmphm smmins.” Caboose waved back with a mouthful of a jawbreaker. 

Before exiting the room Simmons opened a bottle of prescription pills. Nuplazid was what Dr.Grey had prescribed him after one particularly harrowing skirmish 2 years ago. It helped him relax and sleep easy. He swallows on without water and heads to bed. 

Simmons collapsed on his bed on one side of the room, the lights were left on by Grif and there was no window so he found little reason to turn them off. It was easy for him to get comfortable, lately he had been having much better sleep, no imminent threats, no crazy adventures, just days lazing away in a Base out in the middle of nowhere. Standing and talking. Minding a few annoyances he really enjoyed a quiet life. 

He gripped the sheets, his shoulder was a bit sore, the sheets were soft. Carolina had washed them with this flower solution she figured out how to make and it paid off. Sinking into his soft bed Simmons revels in the fact he opted for the more expensive mattress. A couple of times he has caught a good for nothing orange lardass sleeping in his bed instead of the one that was designated as his, but he found he didn’t mind that either. Grif was also a comfortable pillow on some occasions. He’d never admit that but it was true. 

Strangely enough his body began to feel really heavy. Maybe he was actually tired, Simmons breathing hitched as he drifted off to sleep. Mind wandering only for a moment before everything became quiet. 

###  -

“Simmons?” Grif said quietly as he pushed open the door. The noise stirred him awake. Though he was still waking up, vision slightly blurry as he saw the figure move into the room. “Hmm.” Grif says before leaning onto Simmons tapping him on the bed. “Sarge needs you, if you don’t get up he’s gonna come over here.”

“What?, what does he need me for? Another pointless meeting?” Simmons sits up and faces the wall taking in a few deep breaths as he wakes up. 

“Simmons…” Grif smiled and put his body weight on Simmon’s back wrapping his hand around his arms around his shoulders. “You can’t stay in here forever, you don’t wanna be like me do you?” he jokes around. 

Simmons sighs and rolls his eyes, alas Grif knows his greatest weakness is hugs and affection. Lightly caressing Grifs hand with his own, taking in a few nice moments of peace before he’d have to deal with whatever nonsense Sarge wanted. 

“Dude you kinda smell, you need to take a shower. It’s almost 6 pm you know, so you have about one hour before Washington takes his centuries long hot bath.” Grif comments. 

“And you’ve ruined the moment.” He grips Grifs hand and takes it off his shoulder. 

“Hey are you okay? Rude awakening?” His friend starts. Simmons throws Grifs hand off, making his eyes pop open and reel backwards flustered. “Uh..” Grif’s heart rate quickens “sorry.” It sorta sucked to be really bored and not get to do anything because people barged into your room 24/7. Maybe if he also had a do not disturb sign like Tucker he might get some peace and quiet for once. 

“What are you doing?!” Grif growls while Simmons is on top of him. 

“No! dude…. I just wanna- ya know.... Relax and not get up to things.” he blushed.

“ at least let me at least shut the door.” Grif scrambles to the door and closes it collapsing on the door. 

“Okay so now?” Simmons smiles. Grif smiles back. For a few moments there is just pure calm. The room was cold but their body was warm and he almost drifted off to sleep again. 

“Ahh….” Grif breath heaves. “Simmons…” Grif kept adjusting his sitting position on the floor. It almost seems more of a struggle as Grif constantly squirmed which made things difficult. But eventually the other man eased up. After more time passed the two of them laid there together. 

“Take me to alaska..” Grif says to him dozing off. Which left Simmons mildly confused. 

“What the hell does that even mean? We can’t cuddle if you say cryptic things.” Simmons' face hardens, wishing that his friend interacted like a normal human person more often than he normally does. “You really like to ruin moments.” 

“That’s my job.” Grifs face softens. Simmons feels tempted to lean in close, but is interrupted by the sound of the door slamming open. 

“YOU TWO BETTER NOT BE PLAYING GRAB -... ass….” Sarge bursts into the room and freezes. The holding on his breath made noticeable by his fitting red shirt. Simmons and Grif weren’t doing anything anymore but were still on top of each other. Sarge’s eyes scan around the room as if to avoid looking at the two. 

“I..uh...we were on our!” Simmons stammers and Grif rolls over to get out from under him and pushes Sarge. The two of them begin to fight. Shellshocked, the maroon haired main leaps to grab Grif to break up the fight. As he yanks the bigger man back Sarge ends up teetering over with them and they all land on the floor in a dog pile. 

“Why I outta…!” The older man growls. He’s lying on the ground face up, expression getting increasingly angered. Grif and Simmons loom over him and look at each other as if the other should say something. 

“See I just wanted to get you out so that me and Simmons can clean up.” Grif finally retorts.

“WE WEREN'T.” Simmons blushes. “This is all one big misunderstanding, sorry that we were late to the meeting sir. He bows in a frantic apologetic manner. Grif rolls his eyes at the display muttering ‘brown nose’ under his breath. 

“Are you guys okay?” Simmons is still bent over Sarge as Grif turns to the source of the noise. Washington was making his way towards the room. When he enters the room he gets a good look at the positions. “What-.” At his first word he is immediately jumped by Grif. 

“Grif!” Simmons hastily rises going for his friend again. 

“Yeah get him instead!” Sarge shouts, pushing himself up from the floor. “Show him who's boss.” He doesn’t even try to hide his distan for the other person. (it was a long story how he began to dislike him but Simmons already knows so he won’t flashback to it) 

“Don’t encourage him!” 

“You saw nothing! Get out.” Grif pushes him into the hallway as Washington fights back.

“Grif! im pretty sure that is not how you have sex, Carolina said not to do it in the hall!” Simmons cringes at the sound of Caboose's voice down the hallway. He had to fix this misunderstanding right now. He hops past Grif and Washington who seemed to have finished their little skirmish and he ran down the hallway towards Caboose. Caboose was larger than him, had messy black hair and was wearing a loose blue tee shirt with a kitten on it. As Simmons barreled towards him the man opens his arms wide to catch him in a big bear hug, the two of them spinning around and collapsing. 

“I'm getting real sick of falling over.” 

It was a struggle but eventually he was able to get out of Caboose’s breakneck grasp. “Okay, this is a bit out of control.” As he starts to talk he watches Doc and Sister run into the garage and Tucker picks up a mop spinning it in his hand. The teal hoodie wearing black guy ran over as if he was a ninja and hit Simmons over the head with a yelp. 

“Ow! What was that for.” He looked up at Tucker who held the mop like bow staff. Sarge and Grif filed into the main room behind Simmons. 

“So you have chosen death! Well then, this means war!” Sarge shouts before going right for the tackle and getting hit off to the side by the mop.

“You’re going to have to try harder than that!” Tucker hops backwards and swings the mop in a low sweep that knocks Grif off his feet. And spins the mop around some more presumably just for show. 

  
  


“T-tucker!” Caboose smiles at him. The teal soldier turns to his team mate and barks commands. 

“The Sofa! Protect the garage!” Sarge tries to come up at Tucker from behind, he grabs the end of the mop. Tucker struggles to pull it away from him but eventually is able to stumble backwards to where Caboose had dropped the couch. It completely blocked the Garage door and the two of them got into a fighting stance. 

The three of them recover from the beatdown that they were getting. “So what is this, protect that castle or something?” 

“They’re keeping Lopez prisoner, the bastards!” Sarge is grinning ear to ear as he assumes a fighting stance. Simmons shakes his head, realizing that at this point there’s probably no getting out of this stupid game. Dusting off his shirt he looks Tucker and Caboose in the eyes. 

“Washington.” Tucker says wistfully as he looks past them. Keeping a close eye on his next move Simmons sees Tucker fingers tense around the mop as he mumbles something to Caboose. Just as he does that, Caboose attempts to run ahead, tripping and falling. In turn, taking his aqua teammate down with him. 

“Aw dammit!” Tucker says dropping the mop. Not even 1 second later Sarge dog piles on him and starts hitting him in the head. 

“I wanna fight too!” Caboose stands up and runs towards Grif who barely gets a chance to react as the broader man pounces on him. 

“Get off me!” Grif and Caboose roll around tearing up the main room, laughing the entire time they play fight. Due to the fact he was not in a brawl the remaining man walks over and picks up the mop. While the others tired themselves out with indoor hand to hand combat he walks back down the hall to put the mop in the closet. Wash recovered from the tackle earlier and was leaning against the wall with a smug look.

“Their forms are all wrong.” he shook his head. The sound of lightning crashing filled the room causing the group to pause for a moment. 

“THE GREAT ZEUS IS OUR SIDE.” Sarge shouts as he begins to throw pillows. 

“Yeah their heads are all wrong too.” Simmon japs before throwing the closet open and laying the mop inside. Inside was also a few of their clothes, Grifs, Doc, Washington and Tucker all kept their bulkier clothes in the closet rather than their rooms due to lack of space, which made it a glorified walk in closet rather then storage closets, that someone - who may or may not wear big orange hoodies, and name starts with G and ends in F, often throws their clothes into haphazardly. 

By the time Simmons came back over to the main room he saw that the chaos had died down. Grif is raiding the food storage, Sarge seemed to be making his way to his room, Tucker remained in front of the sofa trying to move it back and Caboose and Washington were around the tv watching whatever random show was on. 

That’s just how it was around here. A moment of intense craziness and then calm. For some of them this style of living kept them sane from the melancholy of retirement, for others it was just nice to see their friends happy on a consistent basis. Simmons fell on the latter end most of the time, but occasionally came up with his own bullshit to get lost in. 

He walked over to the only real window of the base, and saw that the rain was still pouring, a lightning storm had started. Despite the torrential gloomy aura of outside, Simmons felt at peace. 

“Hey dude, I found some oreos, want some~?” a voice calls out to him cheerfully. 

Yeah. not even the rain could bring him down. Making his way to the kitchen he sees that grif is eating food off a plate. Looks like it was pork chops, mashed potatoes and vegetables for dinner. Of course his overweight friend was ignoring the vegetables entirely. Frankly he himself wasn’t hungry, He woke up with a few pangs, but now it had passed. “Where are the oreo’s?” Simmons moves over to the pantry, squatting down he sees the pack of oreos flipped over on the floor.  _ ‘Always me on cleanup’  _ Simmons grumbles picking up the chocolate disks off the floor and placing them on the table. 

“What do you want to do tonight.” He asks Grif who had finished cleaning off the pork chops from the plates. Grif seems to ignore his attention drawn to Sarge who was rummaging through the fridge.

They throw out things, splattering them over the floor inconsiderately. “Doc and his darm vegan…” The greying man mutters until eventually settling on cold chilli. 

“Oh Sarge , didn’t we have a meeting? What was that about?” 

“Meeting? Oh that’s right! Lopez, Carolina and I are fixing one of the cars, I came to retrieve you too so we can get your opinion on a few minor upgrades I want to make.” 

“So they’re in the garage?” Simmons asks. Sarge does the worst possible thing and sticks his hand in the chilli and eats it in the container. Simmon’s entire body recoils and he quickly turns to the garage door. Tucker was still standing guard in front of the couch that blocked entry. 

“Hey, I need to get in there.” 

“Nope.” Tucker made a move to the left to block his entry. 

“What why?” 

“Because Doc and Sister just went in there. We’re working on a project and you didn’t come to the meeting so you get to see it when it’s finished.” 

“What the- move outta the way.”

“No.” Tucker assumes a defensive stance. “King of the castle and I'm leaving my gates closed. 

“Ughhh.” A deep frustrated groan leaves his lips. “Fine, whatever, I'm just going to go back to sleep again.” 

“Wow you’re giving up that easy!? Grifs laziness really has rubbed off on you!” Tucker taunts him as he turns back to the hallway. Giving up was the best option, lest he enter a long pointless argument over a minor issue. 

It was getting pretty late anyways, in his room the clock was knocked over onto the floor and it was 8:16 pm. Simmons liked to get up bright and early so he could enjoy the shimmer rays of the moon’s sun (as weird as that sentence was to say). First he went to the kitchen and grabbed one Nuplazid second, he collapsed in his bed. 

-

His eyes were opened. It was dark, and there was a noise he couldn’t place. It was if he was in a long hallway, as he moved forward, steps heavier than normal. 

Everywhere reeked of the familiar scent. As He moved forward things cleared up and his vision was seared with bloodstains on the floor. 

The kitchen, the living room, the hallway 

Simmons wakes up. 

###  -

‘Nightmare’ the word echoes in his mind as he opens his eyes to the small bedroom. He shakes the feeling of the dream out of his system and goes back to sleep. 

The next morning he walked out to the same rhythmic tapping of the rain. Looked like it hadn’t stopped overnight and wasn’t going to stop anytime soon. ‘No matter, nothing can dampen my mood.’ Instantly he knew he was going to regret saying that. Over on a side table the time read 9:18 am, Looking around, He noticed the room lacked Grifs presence which was odd for so early in the morning, but who knows, the man could get hungry and wake up as early as he wanted to. 

First he had to fix his hair, for whatever reason he always had a bad case of bed head _. ‘It’s probably my metal prosthetic static charge or something. _ ’ The man looks at his longgone arm with contempt. On a side table at the end of his bed was a comb that he diligently brushed his mid length hair with. Then all he had to do was dress both their beds before heading out. As he left the room he turned off the light and shut the door behind them, if no one was going to keep the power bill down, he’d have to do it himself. 

Down the same hall again. Sister’s door now slightly ajar, behind them he could hear Sarge in the room behind him. Simmons couldn’t get a good look at Carolina’s as he walked ahead. Washington and Tucker seemed to have removed the ‘ _ Do not disturb’ _ sign - or so he thought- it just fell to the ground. He picked it up and placed it nicely. Doc and Caboose's room remained closed, he assumed one or the other was sleeping in there and entered the main room. 

‘Iron...and Meat?’ That was what he smelled as he walked into the main room, someone was making bacon over the stove maybe? Looking around at the brightly lit room he frowned as the mess from yesterday was still not cleaned up. Caboose was up bright and early, shaking the television as it remained in static. The grown man was sitting on the floor with huge puppy eyes as he unsuccessfully tried to fix it.

“What are you doing Caboose?” 

“The nice lady on the tv has left me…” He sobs.

“You know it’s the rain that’s blocking the signal right?” 

“The rain stops the tv? Is the rain an emp?” 

“No, the rain is not an Emp it’s just.” Simmons scoffs about to correct him on the most obvious thing in the word, then stops himself. There is no way he can explain this in a manner that his dumbass would understand. “The rain is magic, and it’s angry right now so it turned off the tv.”

“Oh no, how do we make the rain not angry!” ‘ugh’

“You know just let it, cry out it’s frustrations until it goes away. Oh and also be quiet so it doesn’t get angrier” he comes up with a ridiculous and pointless response. And of course Michael takes the bait. 

“That makes sense. Thank you Simmon you are so smart.” the larger man continues to shake the tv despite his thorough explanation. 

“Simmons…” He corrects him walking towards the kitchen part of the main room. 

“I need you all to leave the kitchen for a minute.” Simmons perks up as he hears a feminie voice. As he enters the kitchen he sees Carolina standing in the middle of a circle that his friends formed around her. “Please walk away.” she says.

“Carolina! How's the car?” She notices him after he speaks, looking up with a static expression. Her long red dyed hair is tied up in her usual ponytail. Her skin is a little tanner from the sunlight of summer and she is wearing a basic light blue tank top with grey sweatpants. 

“Simmons? What did you say?”

“The car? How is it? You were making upgrades with Lopez?” He walks towards her as everyone else shuffles towards the main room.

“...” She keeps quiet for a moment, as if pondering how to respond. “It’s going okay, are you alright?” 

“Yeah I woke up a little late, but besides that i'm fine.” He moves a lock of hair out of his face and smiles. The girl keeps a neutral expression burrowing her eyes into his form. 

“You should go back to bed.” she says very bluntly. 

“Do I look that bad?” his voice cracks and face reddens.”Look- I have been feeling a little sick, but-” He wants to finish the sentence but his stomach stops him with a pang of pain. “Actually maybe you’re right.” He quickly moved to the closet bathroom which is adjacent to the garage door. Keeling over the toilet he prepares to vomit, but it never comes. Instead he lies there with stomach pain for an inordinate amount of time as the feeling passes. Down the hallway he hears a sound of the garage door creaking open and he leaves the bathroom. 

Off to the side he can see that the couch is still right where it was yesterday in front of the garage door, but was no longer being guarded by someone. Simmons decided to check out the work on the vehicle before eating breakfast. As his hand reaches for the door he is grabbed by the shoulder. 

Carolina has stopped him, she was wearing bulkier clothes , and some sort of bike helmet with a welders mask now and pulled him away from the garage door. In her hands she held a wrench, she probably had just come out from fixing something.He couldn’t read her expression through the helmet but he could feel the aimosty. 

“Why can’t I go in there?” he asks fearing for his life.

“I-....” her voice shakes. “Simmons you need to rest.” He felt if he could see her face it would be a pleading look. So he resigns and stumbles off back to the room. God, it’s been a really weird few minutes wasn't it? In no way was the grown person tired so going back to sleep wasn’t an option. When he flicked the light on he noticed Grif was in there standing in the dark. 

“Hey.”

“Oh hey.” 

“So we got kicked out of the kitchen, do you want to organize the room?” Simmons tried to strike up an activity.

“No, but you’re going to make me do it anyways, and by that I mean you do it by yourself while I pretend to work, so why don’t we just skip the song and dance and you can organize the room while I bother you.” 

“Straight to the point then, very classy.” Simmons picks up pillows and blankets and dresses his bed. 

“Five things you couldn’t figuratively live without?” Grif says leaning against the wall. 

“Socks.”

“Ugh seriously?”

“Gourmet Candy.”

“Any type of candy for me.” He laughs.

“Red clothes.” He finishes with the bed and moves on the dresser flooding clothes that were haphazardly stuffed in there.

“Kiss ass.”

“Calculators.” 

“I thought you were a math genius.”

“Modern technology.” 

“You say that as if your scrawny nerd body could even handle one day of camping like Sarge.” 

Simmons smirks as he finishes the laundry. Then taking a crack at the top of the dresser above. It had various items on it, from lotions to collectables, gum wrappers, pictures in frames, small decorations and hair ties. Maybe this time he can organize them by color, or maybe size, actually, by name made more sense, a-z left to right on the dresser. “Five things that can be used beyond their primary purpose.”

“Hmmm.” Grif purses his lips. “Aluminum cans.”

“Obvious.”

“Hairpins.”

“Criminal..”  _ ‘Bottle, Card, Candy, Dove lotion..’ _ he shuffles items around, while Grif ponders for another answer.

“Bricks.”

“Okay…” 

“Those sweedish cookie tins.”

Simmons lets out a soft chuckle.

“Tinfoil.”

“Tinfoil?” 

“Make a little hat so the government can’t scan your brain.”

“Did you get that from Sarge? Or your sister?”

“Who knows?” 

Eventually there was nothing left in the room to organize, so they sat on their beds in silence. The sound of the garage door opening again prompted Simmons to leave the room. Carefully making his way outside, he cautiously looked over the edge to make sure Carolina wasn’t there. Incidentally he came face to face with her as she was standing in the hallway. 

“Uh hi.” he says a little too squeaky and loud, like a child who had just been caught in the middle of getting up to something. He can see everyone in the living room turn to face the two of them.

“S-” She reels back dramatically. The sound of thunder crackles through the Base. Carolina gets into a fighting stance, but is stopped as Washington goes in to hug her. “Huh? Not now” She says, quickly moving to shake him off. Soon Caboose jumps in for the hug as well, followed by Tucker.

“Dogpile!” Caboose smiles as the four of them fall over. 

“H-hey!” 

“Carolina!” He hears Doc’s voice from somewhere, but he doesn't see him. At his yell Sarge and Grif come out of the respective rooms to see what exactly was going on.

“What in the dickens is going on?” Sarge growls. “Why is there no breakfast yet?” The man is grumpy and patience was clearly running thin. He runs over to the group as if to force everyone to get up and properly start the day, which picks up another fight.

“Oh my goooooood.” Simmons drags his hand down his face in exasperation.

“I should just eat cereal, shouldn't I, no one is going to make bacon.” Grif says behind him. Simmons could only shrug his shoulders. 

Carolina eventually pushes everyone off of her, and stands up with heavy breaths. Her helmet had fallen off in the scuffle, she looked extremely tired. The rest look unapologetic on the floor as she looks around at them with a sort of shocked expression. 

She hands her head down and smiles. “The weather forecast says that the rain will stop tomorrow.” Carolina stumbles towards Simmons. “We don’t have to worry much longer.” 

“It’s hard staying pent up like this.” Simmons agrees. 

“They still remember, talking to them will work.” she leans body against his, voice wavering. 

“What?” 

“If you’re still in there, please...you can’t let any of them into the garage.” Carolina wraps her arms around his to pull him into a tight hug. A familiar smell invades his nostrils. Grif puts his hands on his shoulders in the same place Carolina's head was. Simmons' stomach shoots with pain again, and he suddenly feels extremely dizzy.

“It’s going to be okay, help is coming.” 

That familiar smell...it becomes all too clear. It splatters over his face as Carolina gets a gash in her cheek and falls over. 

He clears his vision and sees it everywhere. Bloodstains sprayed on the hallway, on the floor and his clothes. He keels over, his entire body becoming ice cold, shivering. His stomach turns like he wants to vomit but nothing comes. 

And then… 

Simmons wakes up. 


End file.
